Month: October 2015

“. . . we pass from our blood to our blood and never arrive . . . “ (Zuhair Abu Shayib)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
In the foreground is the Palestinian neighborhood of Sur Baher. Behind it on the hilltop is the Israeli settlement of Har Homa. (Photo: Yoav Galai). See Number ❸ below.
In the foreground is the Palestinian neighborhood of Sur Baher. Behind it on the hilltop is the Israeli settlement of Har Homa. (Photo: Yoav Galai). See Number ❸ below.

❶ 8-month-old baby dies from tear gas inhalation near Bethlehem
❷ Locals: Settlers prevent Palestinian farmers from olive harvest
❸ You may not see it, but Jerusalem is being torn apart
❹ Palestinian Teen Killed By Israeli Army Fire Near Jenin
❺ Opinion/Analysis: Our Youth, Our Gold
❻ Poetry by Zuhair Abu Shayib
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
8-MONTH-OLD  BABY  DIES  FROM  TEAR  GAS  INHALATION  NEAR  BETHLEHEM
Oct. 30, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — An eight-month-old Palestinian baby died Friday from tear gas inhalation in Beit Fajjar village south of Bethlehem during clashes in the area, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.
____The ministry said in a statement that Ramadan Mohammad Faisal Thawabta died after inhaling tear gas when clashes erupted nearby between Palestinians and Israeli military forces.
More . . .
Related . . . ISRAELI  SOLDIERS  TELL  PALESTINIANS:  ‘WE  WILL  GAS  YOU  UNTIL  YOU  DIE’
❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
LOCALS:  SETTLERS  PREVENT  PALESTINIAN  FARMERS  FROM  OLIVE  HARVEST
Oct. 31, 2015
NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli settlers on Saturday prevented Palestinian farmers from accessing their olive fields on the outskirts of Burin village near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, locals said.
____Local sources told Ma’an that dozens of settlers blocked entrance of farmers to their land while Israeli soldiers stopped two busses carrying volunteers en route to assist Palestinians in the olive harvest.
____The busses were stopped on the main road between Nablus and the illegal settlement Yitzhar [. . . . .].
____Locals added that Israeli settlers also stole olives and farming equipment from Palestinians in the Bab Sanna area of Burin, which is completely surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements to the north and west.
More . . .
❸ +972 MAGAZINE
YOU  MAY  NOT  SEE  IT,  BUT  JERUSALEM  IS  BEING  TORN  APART
Yoav Galai
Redrawing the map of Jerusalem will not lock out potential attackers. Instead, it will only spark the sort of reaction one could expect following the wholesale nullification of rights from a significant number of Palestinians.
Oct. 31 2015
With so much being written about the volatility of the status quo on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, a bigger picture of a deeply divided city breaking apart is becoming lost. On Sunday, Israel’s Channel 2 reported that the government is considering revoking the residency status of Palestinians in East Jerusalem who live beyond the separation barrier. Though this would potentially remove tens of thousands of Palestinians from the city, such a move is only possible today due to a series of actions taken by municipal and state authorities over years.
More . . .
Related . . . FEAR  AND  LOATHING  IN  JERUSALEM
❹ IMEMC-INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
PALESTINIAN  TEEN  KILLED  BY  ISRAELI  ARMY  FIRE  NEAR  JENIN
Oct. 31, 2015
Israeli soldiers shot and killed, earlier Saturday, a Palestinian teenager in the al-Jalama Israeli military roadblock, north of Jenin, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.
____Eyewitnesses said the soldiers fired several rounds of live ammunition on the child, inflicting several serious gunshot injuries, causing him to die of his wounds later.
____The Red Crescent Society in Jenin said the soldiers prevented its medics from reaching the seriously wounded teen, and left him to bleed, before dragging his body behind the main gate of the military terminal.
More . . .

From Today In Palestine. Photo by Dareen Tatour.
From Today In Palestine. Photo by Dareen Tatour.

❺ Opinion/Analysis
THIS WEEK IN PALESTINE
OUR  YOUTH,  OUR  GOLD
Riyam Kafri AbuLaban
November 2015
Young and strong, with a stone in one hand and a bullet in the neck is the image du jour right? Young, with a school-book bag on his back, running home after the end of the school day, shot, left to bleed; his hands reach out in front of him hoping someone will help him up, a strangled call for mama comes out and the video ends. A mother buries her seventeen-year old, another her thirteen-year old, and another her twenty-something son, the bookworm with the contagious smile. All these murdered young souls, and more, have been our daily dose of the reality we live in. Our children, the hope for a better future, are moving targets with trigger-happy Israeli occupation forces aiming and shooting to kill.
More . . .

“PROBABILITIES,”  BY  ZUHAIR  ABU  SHAYIB
From
what source of light
does the day occur?
Does the earth propitiate itself
and the seas catch fire?
By what light
Do we shell roads until daybreak?
and the sound is bearable
and the morning, like bullets, is bearable.
Stop, you tall handsome one
we pass from
our blood to our blood
and never arrive
and take flight to our blood
and the siege pursues us.
The wound in our suitcases
Bears our features
While it is carried by the sea.
And death is bearable
and silence is bearable
and the morning, like bullets, is bearable.

From ANTHOLOGY  OF  MODERN  PALESTINIAN  LITERATURE.  Ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi.Trans. May Jayyusi and Jeremy Reed. New York: Columbia University Press (August 15, 1994).
About Zuhair Abu Shayib

Israel's separation wall pictured from Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem, extended from the place of the photo above. (Charlie Hoyle/File)
Israel’s separation wall pictured from Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem, extended from the place of the photo above. (Charlie Hoyle/File)

“. . . It is my right to behold the sun . . .” (Fouzi El-Asmar)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
The Gaza Music School is the only institution in the territory dedicated to the study of the art. Photo: Mousa Tawfiq. https://electronicintifada.net/content/making-music-under-siege/14946
“. . . to water the vineyards with music. . .” The Gaza Music School is the only institution in the territory dedicated to the study of the art. Photo: Mousa Tawfiq. https://electronicintifada.net/content/making-music-under-siege/14946

❶ 68 Palestinians, Including 13 Children and A Pregnant Woman, Killed This Month; 921 Wounded
❷ Israelis only understand force — and it makes them angrier, polls show
❸ 2 Palestinians shot at Nablus checkpoint after alleged attack
❹ Group: Israeli settlers lock family out of their home in Silwan
❺ Opinion/Analysis: The Palestinians Are Living in a Tragedy of Eternal Struggle
❻ Poetry by Fouzi el-Asmar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ IMEMC-INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
68  PALESTINIANS,  INCLUDING  13  CHILDREN  AND  A  PREGNANT  WOMAN,  KILLED  THIS  MONTH;  921  WOUNDED
October 30, 2015
The Health Minister has reported that 68 Palestinians have been killed, and 921 Palestinians have been shot and injured with live Israeli army rounds, since the beginning of this month, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, while 855 were shot with rubber-coated steel bullets, and 208 suffered fractures and bruises after being assaulted and beaten by soldiers and fanatic settlers.
More . . .
Related . . .
❷ +972 MAGAZINE
ISRAELIS  ONLY  UNDERSTAND  FORCE —  AND  IT  MAKES  THEM  ANGRIER,  POLLS  SHOW
New polls find that a majority of Jewish Israelis support the ‘voluntary transfer’ of West Bank Palestinians, a majority want to strip East Jerusalem Palestinians of Israeli residency.
Dahlia Scheindlin
Oct. 29, 2015
The latest crisis of violence has become a successful campaign of terror: Israelis are profoundly shaken. Many have reverted to the Second Intifada mentality of personal risk calculations based on self-selected danger factors and fingers in the wind.
More . . .
❸ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
2  PALESTINIANS  SHOT  AT  NABLUS  CHECKPOINT  AFTER  ALLEGED  ATTACK
Oct. 30, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Two Palestinians were shot in the Nablus district on Friday after allegedly attempting to stab an Israeli border policeman, Israel’s army said.
___An Israeli army spokesperson said two Palestinians tried to stab an Israeli border policeman at the Tappuah, or Zatara, military checkpoint south of Nablus.
____Both alleged attackers were shot, he added.
More . . .
❹ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
GROUP:  ISRAELI  SETTLERS  LOCK  FAMILY  OUT  OF  THEIR  HOME  IN  SILWAN
Oct. 29, 2015
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israeli settlers on Thursday prevented a Palestinian family from entering their home in the Batan al-Hawa area of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem, a local organization said.
____Wadi Hilweh Information Center said that Israeli settlers who live in the area prevented Rania Abu Nab and her four children, aged 4 to 14-years-old, from entering the home, before Israeli police arrived at the scene reportedly in support of the settlers [. . . . .].
____Abu Nab said she had left her home to meet with UNRWA employees, who were prevented from visiting her at home by Israeli settlers in the area.
____When Abu Nab tried to come home, the main gate of the compound where her home is was reportedly locked and the Israeli settlers did not allow her back into the house. She added that they did not provide any reason and mockingly told her “keep having meetings and interviews.”
More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
PALESTINE CHRONICLE
THE  PALESTINIANS  ARE  LIVING  IN  A  TRAGEDY  OF  ETERNAL  STRUGGLE
Hasan Afif El-Hasan
Oct 28 2015
The third explosion in the Palestinian struggle for freedom from occupation finally came in October of this year, sparked by the Israeli minister of defense banning the Palestinian Murabitun from entering Al-Aqsa mosque, either for tutorials or maintenance and protection roles, something they have been doing for decades. The Israeli action spread like wildfire across the West Bank and Gaza, as though the Palestinians were shaking off the decades of accumulated humiliation under the occupation.
____The future of the Arab –populated Jerusalem where Al-Aqsa mosque is located was decided by Israel as soon as the guns fell silent after the 1967 war and Israel was triumphant and drunk with a heady sense of power. On 18 June of 1967, the government of Israel annexed East Jerusalem and the surrounding area, and extended the Israeli laws to it. This action was supported by all Israeli political and civil society factions, secular and religious, and across party lines.
More . . .

“THE  WAY,” BY  FOUZI  E-ASMAR
I shall not despair:
Whether my way leads to a jail,
Under the sun
Or in exile
I shall not despair.

It is my right to behold the sun
To demolish the tent and the banishment
To eat the fruit of the olive
To water the vineyards
With music.
To sing of love
In Jaffa, in Haifa
To sow the fertile land
With new seeds
It is my right.

From: El-Asmar, Fouzi. THE  WIND-DRIVEN  REED  AND  OTHER  POEMS.  Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1979.
Available from Amazon.
About Fouzi el-Asmar

Video: For the second consecutive day, storming into Al-Maqased hospital looking for the medical file of a detained child October 30, 2015 Wadi Hilweh Information Center - Silwan http://silwanic.net/?p=64660
Video: For the second consecutive day, storming into Al-Maqased hospital looking for the medical file of a detained child
October 30, 2015
Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Silwan
http://silwanic.net/?p=64660

“. . . Bound his hands to the rock of the dead and said: Murderer!. . .” (Mahmoud Darwish)

Harold Knight1 Comment
A Palestinian youth reacts during clashes with Israeli forces in the West Bank town of Hebron on October 4, 2015. (Agence France‑Presse/Photo)
A Palestinian youth reacts during clashes with Israeli forces in the West Bank town of Hebron on October 4, 2015. (Agence France‑Presse/Photo)

❶ Protest called in Hebron as Israel withholds 11 Palestinians’ bodies
❷ Israeli Army Detains 46 Palestinians in West Bank, Jerusalem
❸ UN: Israel should not take unilateral steps in Jerusalem
❹ Personality of the Month: Albert Aghazarian
❺ Opinion/Analysis: Ramzy  Baroud:  Palestine  Remains  the  Core  Struggle  in  the  Middle  East
❻ Poetry by Mahmoud Darwish
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PROTEST  CALLED  IN  HEBRON  AS  ISRAEL  WITHHOLDS  11  PALESTINIANS’  BODIES
Oct. 27, 2015
HEBRON (Ma’an) — Palestinians across the southern West Bank district of Hebron are set to rally on Tuesday in protest against Israel’s decision to withhold the bodies of 11 Palestinians shot dead by Israeli forces this month.
____Palestinian factions across Hebron called for the “rally of anger” to march from al-Haras mosque in Hebron’s city center to Ibn Rush Square.
____In a joint statement, Hebron’s factional leaders urged residents of Hebron district to join the rally in solidarity with the families of Hebron’s “martyrs.”
More . . .
❷ PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
ISRAELI  ARMY  DETAINS  46  PALESTINIANS  IN  WEST  BANK,  JERUSALEM
Oct. 27, 2015
Israeli forces late Monday and early Tuesday detained 46 Palestinians, including minors, from across the West Bank districts, including Jerusalem, bringing the total number of Palestinians detained since the beginning of violent unrest in October 1, 2015, to 1085, according to local and security sources.
____Forces detained nine Palestinians during a raid and search campaign conducted across the Hebron area.
____In Hebron city, army soldiers detained four Palestinians after raiding and wreaking havoc into their homes.
More . . .
❸ THE MIDDLE EAST MONITOR (MEMO)
UN:  ISRAEL  SHOULD  NOT  TAKE  UNILATERAL  STEPS  IN  JERUSALEM
Oct. 27, 2015
Israel must refrain from taking any unilateral steps in Jerusalem; Anadolu Agency reported a UN spokesperson as saying yesterday.
____UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric’s comment came after Israeli media reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to revoke the residencies of Palestinians living in the East Jerusalem side of the Separation Wall.
More . . . 
Related . . . ‘MOST-READ’  ARTICLE  AT  WASHINGTON  POST  CALLS  ISRAEL  ‘SAVAGE,  UNREPAIRABLE  SOCIETY’ 

Albert-Aghazarian
Albert-Aghazarian

❹ THIS WEEK IN PALESTINE
PERSONALITY  OF  THE  MONTH  ALBERT  AGHAZARIAN
[. . . . .] “But of course, Albert Aghazarian!” The mere utterance of his name usually precipitates numerous stories about Al-Ustaz, the teacher… the Old City’s walking encyclopedia who knows the history of Jerusalem up to its each and every stone.
____Albert Aghazarian may be known mostly as a historian, a teacher, and a storyteller, but if you were to ask him, he might say that he is first and foremost an interpreter, because everything in this life is up for interpretation. A fluent speaker of Arabic, English, French, Armenian, Hebrew, Turkish, and some Spanish, Albert would say that he only speaks “one language,” before he pauses and adds… “at a time.”
More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
PALESTINE CHRONICLE
RAMZY  BAROUD:  PALESTINE  REMAINS THE  CORE  STRUGGLE  IN  THE  MIDDLE  EAST
Oct 26 2015
[. . . . .]
Historically, chaos, whether that managed by or provoked in its entirety by Israel and its Zionist and neoconservative supporters, has largely served the objectives of successive Israeli governments. Whatever benefits Israel reaped from conflicts, tend to serve it in the short term only. In the long term, agitated conflicts often backfire.
____This has caused Israel an unsolvable dilemma: it is a state that engenders perpetual conflict, yet invariably seeks normalization, security and stability, all at the same time. In reality, however, the position that Israel managed to carve for itself is that of a warring, barbarous nation – a scenario that explains its rise, but also its inevitable downfall [. . . . .]
____So naturally, the Arab world cannot be ‘okay’ if Palestine is not ‘okay’.
More . . . 

“ABOUT  A  MAN,”  BY  MAHMOUD  DARWISH
They gagged his mouth,
Bound his hands to the rock of the dead
And said: Murderer!
They took his food, clothes and banners,
Cast him into the condemned cell
And said: Thief!
They drove him away from every port,
Took his young sweetheart,
Then said: Refugee!

O you with bloodshot eyes and bloody hands,
Night is short-lived,
The detention room lasts not forever,
Nor yet the links of chains.
Nero died, Rome did not:
With her very eyes she fights.
And seeds from a withered ear
With wheat shall fill the valley.

From Poem Hunter. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-man/  Web. 26 Jun 2015.
A conversation with Mahmoud Darwish

CPT members escort children to school in Hebron. Christian Peacemaker Teams Palestine supports Palestinian-led, non-violent, grassroots resistance to the Israeli occupation. By collaborating with local Palestinian and Israeli peacemakers and educating people in our home communities we strive to help create a space for justice and peace. (Photo: CPT)
CPT members escort children to school in Hebron. Christian Peacemaker Teams Palestine supports Palestinian-led, non-violent, grassroots resistance to the Israeli occupation. By collaborating with local Palestinian and Israeli peacemakers and educating people in our home communities we strive to help create a space for justice and peace. (Photo: CPT)

“. . . Have you forgotten your shame at . . .” (Samih Al-Qasim)

Harold Knight1 Comment
Hashem al-Azzeh harvests his family’s olives directly beneath the Israeli settlement of Tel Rumeida in the West Bank city of Hebron in October 2012. (Photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler ActiveStills.)
Hashem al-Azzeh harvests his family’s olives  in Hebron in October 2012. (Photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler- ActiveStills.)

❶ Israel, Jordan Agree Deal for Al-Aqsa Mosque
❷ Palestinian shot, killed near Hebron after stabbing Israeli
❸ Settlers attack Palestinian farmers picking olives near Nablus
❹ [Deceased] Hebron activist showed Israel’s crimes to the world
❺ Opinion/Analysis: Israeli Self-inflicted Hate
❺―A: Can Netanyahu say just what he likes?
❻ Poetry by Samih Al-Qasim
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ MIDDLE EAST MONITOR (MEMO)
ISRAEL,  JORDAN  AGREE  DEAL  FOR  AL-AQSA  MOSQUE
Oct. 25, 2015
Jordan and Israel have agreed to install 24-hour surveillance in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in a bid to reduce recent tensions over Islam’s third holiest site, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced in Jordanian capital Amman on Saturday.
____” I am also very pleased to announce today that [Israeli] Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu has agreed to what I think is an excellent suggestion by [Jordanian] King Abdullah to provide 24-hour video coverage of all sites on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif”, Kerry said during a press conference with his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh.
More . . .
❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PALESTINIAN  SHOT,  KILLED  NEAR  HEBRON  AFTER  STABBING  ISRAELI
Oct. 26, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A Palestinian suspect was shot and killed after stabbing an Israeli in Hebron on Monday, Israel’s army and media reported.
____An Israeli army spokesperson said a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli in the neck near Beit Einun junction north of Hebron and was shot and killed at the scene.
____The Israeli, who is reportedly 19-years-old, was taken for medical treatment at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem with serious injuries.
____Israel’s army could not confirm whether the Israeli victim was a soldier or a settler, after conflicting reports in Hebrew-language media.
More . . .
❸ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
SETTLERS  ATTACK  PALESTINIAN  FARMERS  PICKING  OLIVES  NEAR  NABLUS
Oct. 26, 2015
NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian farmers harvesting olives on their land east of Nablus on Monday, a local monitor told Ma’an.
____Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settler activity in the norther West Bank, told Ma’an that a group of settlers from Elon Moreh threw rocks at farmers in the Azmut and Deir al-Hatab areas east of Nablus.
____The farmers were forced to leave their land despite having organized access to their fields through the Palestinian and Israeli liaison offices.
____Settlers also attacked a 66-year-old man, identified as Hajj Tawfiq, moderately injuring him, Daghlas said.
More . . .
❹ THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
HEBRON  ACTIVIST  SHOWED  ISRAEL’S  CRIMES  TO  THE  WORLD
Ryan Rodrick Beiler
Oct. 23, 2015
Hebron resident and anti-occupation activist Hashem al-Azzeh died Wednesday after inhaling tear gas fired by Israeli forces.
____According to Palestinian media reports, al-Azzeh, who suffered from a heart condition, began feeling chest pains while in his home in the Israeli-controlled Tel Rumeida neighborhood of the occupied West Bank city.
____“There was no chance to get an ambulance there,” Hisham Sharabati, coordinator of the Hebron Defense Committee and a field worker for the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq, told The Electronic Intifada. Israeli forces do not allow Palestinian vehicles to drive on the streets near his home, which are reserved for Jewish motorists.
More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
PALESTINE CHRONICLE
ISRAELI  SELF- INFLICTED  HATE
Jamal Kanj
Oct. 25 2015
Haftom Zarhum, a 29-year-old Eritrean, was lynched by Jewish Israelis simply because he looked different. After being shot in the legs, a mob circled him like hyenas over a bleeding prey throwing a bench over his head and chanting the unofficial Zionist’s anthem of hate: “Death to Arabs, Arabs out!” and “Am Israel Hai”.
____Disowning culpability and playing the traditional victim, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nashon blamed the incident on the “terrible situation we are in.” [. . . . .]
____Screaming at an injured Palestinian child soaked in blood, a racist mob lynching Zarhum, or killing a Jew who was mistaken for a Palestinian were further manifestations of Israel’s culture of hate. It was espoused by no less than Israeli minister of culture, and supported by the majority of Israelis.
More . . .
❺―A:  THE GUARDIAN
CAN  NETANYAHU  SAY  JUST  WHAT  HE  LIKES?
Dahlia Scheindlin
Oct. 23, 2015
More . . . 

“BUCHENWALD,”  BY  SAMIH  AL-QASIM
Have you forgotten your shame at Buchenwald?
Do you remember your flames at Buchenwald?
Have you forgotten your love in the lexicon
of silence? Do you remember your panic―
at the reign of death, in the nightmare of time―
that the whole world
would become a Buchenwald?
Whether you’ve forgotten or not,
the dead’s images linger
among the wreaths of flowers,
and from the dismembered corpses
a hand emerges,
a nail in the palm and tattoo on the wrist―
a sign for the planet.
Do you remember? Or not?
Buchenwald― whether or not you’ve forgotten,
the images of the murdered
remain among the wreaths of flowers . . .

From Al-Qasim, Samih. SADDER  THAN  WATER.  New  and  Selected  Poems.  Trans. Nazih Kasis and Adina Hoffman. Jerusalem: Ibis Editions, 2008.
Available from Amazon
About Samih Al-Qasim. Obituary, August 20, 2014.

Muslims gathered at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem for the Eid al-Adha prayers. Image Source: Getty / AHMAD GHARABLI
Muslims gathered at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem for the Eid al-Adha prayers.
Image Source: Getty / AHMAD GHARABLI

“. . . Oh Jerusalem, the city of sorrow . . .” (Nizar Qabbani)

Harold Knight1 Comment
Jewish anti-occupation activists hand out flyers to delegates at the World Zionist Congress, Jerusalem, October 20, 2015. (Photo: Laura Gottesdiener). See number ❸ below.
Jewish anti-occupation activists hand out flyers to delegates at the World Zionist Congress, Jerusalem, October 20, 2015. (Photo: Laura Gottesdiener). See number ❸ below.

❶ Jerusalem family demolishes own home following Israeli order
❷ Settler shoots, critically injures Palestinian near Gush Etzion
❸ Diaspora Jews bring occupation to World Zionist Congress
❹ Settlers Set Car Ablaze, Spray Paint Racist Graffiti in Jerusalem
❺ Opinion/Analysis: It’s in times of violence we need most to talk about peace
❻ Poetry by Nizar Qabbani
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
JERUSALEM  FAMILY  DEMOLISHES  OWN  HOME  FOLLOWING  ISRAELI  ORDER
Oct. 24, 2015
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — A Palestinian family in occupied East Jerusalem demolished its own home on Saturday in order to avoid the Israeli municipality’s demolition.
____The house, which totaled 100 square meters, was built in 1998 in the Beit Hanina neighborhood of East Jerusalem, and had been housing Abeer al-Rajabi, her husband, and six children, aged six to 18 years old.
____Abeer’s father, Elias, told Ma’an that the Israeli authorities had delivered several demolition orders in recent years, with the final order issued in April.
____The order gave the family until Oct. 24 to execute the demolition, after which point they would be charged 60,000 shekels ($15,430) in demolition expenses.
More . . .
❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
SETTLER  SHOOTS,  CRITICALLY  INJURES  PALESTINIAN  NEAR  GUSH  ETZION
Oct. 25, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — An Israeli settler shot and seriously injured a young Palestinian man on Sunday morning in the Wadi Sair area near the illegal Israeli settlement bloc of Gush Etzion, southeast of Bethlehem, Palestinian security sources said.
____The settler claimed, according to Israeli reports, that a Palestinian attacked him with a knife.
____Palestinian security sources told Ma’an that an Israeli settler shot 20-year-old Azzam Azmi Shalalda four times while he was in his agricultural field, after the actual person suspected of carrying out the alleged attack had reportedly already fled the scene.
____After the shooting, Shalalda was evacuated to al-Mamoon clinic in Sair for first aid, before he was taken to al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron. Medics say he is in a critical condition.
More . . .
Related . . . WITNESSES:  ISRAELI  POLICE  SHOOT,  KILL  PALESTINIAN  WOMAN  IN  HEBRON
❸ +972 MAGAZINE
DIASPORA  JEWS  BRING  OCCUPATION  TO WORLD  ZIONIST  CONGRESS
Edo Konrad
While Netanyahu was busy blaming a Palestinian for the Holocaust, a group of Jewish activists asked the World Zionist Congress what it was planning to do to end the occupation.
Oct. 24, 2015
Hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made headlines for telling the World Zionist Congress that a Palestinian inspired Hitler to exterminate the Jews, a group of Jews from around the world came to that very same congress to remind delegates of the conditions in which Palestinians live [. . . . .].
____ . . . One side of the flyers included a quote from historic Zionist leader and promoter of Jewish-Palestinian bi-nationalism, Martin Buber, from World Zionist Congress in Karlsbad, Czechoslovakia in 1921, where he implored the congress, and the Jewish people at large, to “reject with abhorrence the methods of nationalistic domination, under which they themselves have so long suffered.”
More . . .
❹ PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
SETTLERS  SET  CAR  ABLAZE,  SPRAY  PAINT  RACIST  GRAFFITI  IN  JERUSALEM
Oct. 25, 2015 (WAFA) – Extremist Jewish settlers from the so-called ‘price tag’ group at dawn Sunday set a Palestinian-owned car on fire and spray painted racists graffiti on walls in Um Tuba, a village just southeast of Jerusalem, according to local sources.
____According to witnesses, settlers from the ‘price tag’ group set a car ablaze and painted racist slogans that call for the killing of Palestinians, in addition to the Jewish Star of David. The car belongs to local Nayef Abu Tair.
____The group has conducted similar attacks in Jerusalem and across the West Bank in recent years.
____Violence by illegal Jewish settlers is commonplace. They have repeatedly attacked Palestinian property and worship places. Settler violence includes property and mosques’ arsons, stone-throwing, uprooting of crops and olive trees, and attacks on vulnerable homes, among others.
More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
+ 972 MAGAZINE
IT’S  IN  TIMES  OF  VIOLENCE  WE  NEED  MOST  TO  TALK  ABOUT  PEACE
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man
Oct. 22, 2015
Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas will never make peace. They will never succeed at stopping the violence, and they will never see eye to eye on anything other than the incompatibility of their respective visions.
____Don’t get me wrong: both men want peace. Even Benjamin Netanyahu . . . . is a master politician whose worldview dictates that the Jewish people will never be safe and that Muslims in general, but Palestinians in particular, are the greatest threat to it.
____That world view is the driving force behind the only two issues in which Netanyahu has ever fully invested himself in his political career: preventing Iranian nuclear proliferation, and ensuring that Israel does not give up strategic military control of the West Bank and Gaza. It’s not that he wants to rule over the Palestinians, it’s just that they happen to live on the land over which he will never agree to cede control.
____There will never be a Palestinian leader who agrees to Netanyahu’s terms for peace
More . . .

“JERUSALEM,” BY NIZAR QABBANI

I wept until my tears were dry
I prayed until the candles flickered
I knelt until the floor creaked
I asked about Mohammed and Christ
Oh Jerusalem, the fragrance of prophets
The shortest path between earth and sky
Oh Jerusalem, the citadel of laws
A beautiful child with fingers charred
and downcast eyes
You are the shady oasis passed by the Prophet
Your streets are melancholy
Your minarets are mourning
You, the young maiden dressed in black
Who rings the bells in the Nativity
On Saturday morning?
Who brings toys for the children
On Christmas eve?
Oh Jerusalem, the city of sorrow
A big tear wandering in the eye
Who will halt the aggression
On you, the pearl of religions?
Who will wash your bloody walls?
Who will safeguard the Bible?
Who will rescue the Quran?
Who will save Christ?
Who will save man?
Oh Jerusalem my town
Oh Jerusalem my love
Tomorrow the lemon trees will blossom
And the olive trees will rejoice
Your eyes will dance
The migrant pigeons will return
To your sacred roofs
And your children will play again
And fathers and sons will meet
On your rosy hills
My town
The town of peace and olives.

“Jerusalem, Poem by Nizar Qabbani.” Poemhunter.com. Web. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/jerusalem-12/
Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998) was a Syrian diplomat and poet revered by Arabs for his sensual and romantic verse. A man of his times and of all times, he is by far the most popular contemporary poet in the Arab world.

An 18-month-old boy and his parents were killed in a night-time attack on two homes in the village of Duma.The Hebrew word for "revenge" and a Star of David were found sprayed on the wall of one of the gutted houses. July 31, 2015. (Photo: BBC News). See number ❹ above.
An 18-month-old boy and his parents were killed in a night-time attack on two homes in the village of Duma.The Hebrew word for “revenge” and a Star of David were found sprayed on the wall of one of the gutted houses. July 31, 2015. (Photo: BBC News). See number ❹ above.

“. . . They arrested him – imprisoned him in the trunk of the jalopy . . .” (Mu’in Tawfiq Bseiso)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Soldiers at AL JALAMA CHECKPOINT pursuing Palestinian youth (PCHR photo). See ❷ below. Background from 2013 showing the causes of the current increase in violence are cumulative: http://www.imemc.org/article/65051
Soldiers at AL JALAMA CHECKPOINT pursuing Palestinian youth (PCHR photo). See ❷ below.
Background from 2013 showing the causes of the current increase in violence are cumulative:
http://www.imemc.org/article/65051

❶ Analysis: Has Netanyahu’s revisionism ended the use of the Holocaust as enabler of Israeli injustice toward Palestinians?
❷ Palestinian shot dead after alleged Jenin attack, no injuries reported
❸ Palestinian injured in Gaza demo last week dies from injuries
❹ Army Kidnaps Eleven Palestinians, Including Two Children in Jerusalem
❺ Opinion/Analysis: ANOTHER MISUNDERSTOOD PALESTINIAN UPRISING
❻ Poetry by Mu’in Tawfiq Bseiso
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ MONDOWEISS
HAS  NETANYAHU’S  REVISIONISM  ENDED  THE  USE  OF  THE  HOLOCAUST  AS  ENABLER  OF  ISRAELI  INJUSTICE  TOWARD  PALESTINIANS?
Marc H. Ellis
(Marc H. Ellis is retired Director and Professor of Jewish Studies at Baylor University and author of  Burning Children: A Jewish View of the War in Gaza.)
AS  NETANYAHU’S  HOLOCAUST  REVISIONISM  continues to find its way around the world, Jewish memory is besmirched. . . . Buried in the outrage, though, is a deeper issue: Is Netanyahu’s use of the Holocaust to further incite his political constituency against Palestinians what we should focus on? Or is it the fact that many of those who condemn Netanyahu for his Holocaust blunder are also enablers of the destruction of Palestine?
____The almost panicked desire to separate the real culprit of the Holocaust, Hitler, rather than an irrelevant side-kick, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, is telling. It is also too easy. Separating the two, while important, is a distraction from the real and ongoing culprit in the suffering of Palestinians – the correct, substantial, highly prestigious, well-funded, real history of the Holocaust.
More . . .
❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PALESTINIAN  SHOT  DEAD  AFTER  ALLEGED  JENIN  ATTACK,  NO  INJURIES  REPORTED
Oct. 24, 2015
JENIN (Ma’an) — A Palestinian youth was shot dead Saturday near al-Jalama military checkpoint north of Jenin in the occupied West Bank after he allegedly attempted to stab an Israeli security guard, eyewitnesses and the Israeli army said.
____Eyewitnesses told Ma’an that “there were no stabbing attempts” at the time that Israeli forces opened fire at a 16-year-old Palestinian at the crossing.
____The forces then dragged the injured youth inside of the checkpoint preventing Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances from reaching him for treatment, eyewitnesses added.
____The youth has not yet been identified.
More . . .
   Related . . . PEACE  ACTIVIST  RABBI  ARIK  ASCHERMAN  ATTACKED  BY  KNIFE-WIELDING  SETTLER  IN  WEST  BANK
Related . . .
❸ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PALESTINIAN  INJURED  IN  GAZA  DEMO  LAST WEEK  DIES  FROM  INJURIES
Oct. 23, 2015
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — A Palestinian succumbed to his injuries on Friday evening after being shot in the head by Israeli forces during a demonstration in the Gaza Strip last week, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said.
____Ashraf al-Qidra identified the man as Yahya Karira, 20, from al-Tuffah neighborhood. He told Ma’an that Karira was shot when clashes erupted between Israeli forces and Palestinians in Nahal Oz in the eastern Gaza Strip.
____Karira is the 16th Palestinian to be killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the month. Fourteen have been shot with live ammunition during clashes, and a two-year-old and her pregnant mother were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
More . . .
❹ IMEMC-INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTE
ARMY  KIDNAPS  ELEVEN  PALESTINIANS,  INCLUDING  TWO  CHILDREN  IN  JERUSALEM
Oct. 24, 2015
Israeli soldiers have kidnapped, late on Friday at night and on Saturday at dawn, eleven Palestinians, including two children, in different parts of occupied Jerusalem.
____The Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Silwan (Silwanic) said the soldiers invaded the al-‘Eesawiyya town, south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, searched several homes and kidnapped Wajdi Mahmoud, Daoud Yousef Atiyya, Abed Dari and Mohammad Ali Nasser.
More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
PALESTINE CHRONICLE
ANOTHER  MISUNDERSTOOD  PALESTINIAN  UPRISING
Mohamed El Mokhtar
Oct. 23, 2015
When the Palestinians demand a withdrawal from the 1967 borders, the Israeli response is No because those borders are purportedly “indefensible”. When they ask for a bi-national state, the response is, also, negative because that would be the end of Israel as a “Jewish state”. When they insist that occupied East Jerusalem be the capital of their future state, they are reminded that the status of Al-Quds is non-negotiable for Jerusalem is the “undivided, eternal capital of the Jewish people”. And the Right of Return is not even up for grabs [. . . . .]
____When Palestinian political movements and civil society engage in non-violent protest, they are met with tear gas and military barricades. Those who launched the BDS movement are labeled “Jew-haters” and their supporters worldwide accused of functioning as a “band of anti-Semites and hypocrites”. Confined in their enclaves, cut off the outside world, surrounded by Jewish settlements, Palestinians are supposed to acquiesce to their fate and suffer in silence.
____The sporadic flares of violence, born out of frustration and despair, are systematically decontextualized and misunderstood. They are depicted as a resumption of violence as though the occupation was not in and of itself a form of violence.
More . . .

“A  TRAFFIC  LIGHT,”  BY  MU’IN  TAWFIQ  BSEISO  (Mueen  Bessissio) ―(1979)

Red light, stop
Green light, go
Red green stop go
.
Red light, red light
Where is the green light…?
A pregnant woman in a jalopy
gave birth in a jalopy
The child grew up, fell in love, and was married in the jalopy
He fathered children, read the world’s magazines and newspapers in the jalopy
They arrested him – imprisoned him in the trunk of the jalopy
He enlisted and was killed under the windows of the jalopy
They buried him beneath the wheels of the jalopy
And the jalopy was still in the street
awaiting the green light
awaiting the yellow
.
Red light, stop
Green light, go
Red light
and green light.
――Trans. John Mikhail Asfour.

John Mikhail Asfour, trans, and ed., When The Words Burn: An Anthology of Modern Arabic Poetry, 1945–1987 (Dunvegan, Ontario: Cormorant Books, 1988). Pp. 237.

Mu’in Tawfiq Bseiso, a poet from Gaza who lost his homeland with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians after the foundation of an Israeli state, (born 1926, also spelled Mueen Bessissou or Bsayso) suffered the tragedy of his country. He was exiled to Egypt. His exile intensified both his nationalism and the universal dimension of his poetry, for he linked the Palestinian tragedy with the tragedies experienced by other nations.

A Palestinian is evacuated after being injured by a tear gas canister during clashes with Israeli forces near the Nahal Oz border crossing, east of Gaza City on Oct. 10, 2015. (Agence France‑Presse/Photo Mahmud Hams).
A Palestinian is evacuated after being injured by a tear gas canister during clashes with Israeli forces near the Nahal Oz border crossing, east of Gaza City on Oct. 10, 2015. (Agence France‑Presse/Photo Mahmud Hams).

“. . . reclaimed my hand from the combat of the street . . . “ (Ibrahim Nasrallah)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
“O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM. . .” Israeli forces close a main road in Bethlehem where near-daily clashes have taken place since Oct .1. (MaanImages)
“O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM. . .” Israeli forces close a main road in Bethlehem where near-daily clashes have taken place since Oct .1. (MaanImages)

❶ What’s happening on Gaza-Israeli border?
❷ Israel closes major checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem
❸ Israeli forces detain 10 Palestinians in West Bank raids
❹ Israeli Police Kills Youth near Jerusalem for Alleged Stabbing
❺ Opinion/Analysis: The real problem with Netanyahu’s Mufti speech
❻ Poetry by Ibrahim Nasrallah
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ AL-MONITOR: THE PULSE OF THE MIDDLE EAST
WHAT’S  HAPPENING  ON  GAZA-ISRAELI  BORDER?
Asmaa al-Ghoul
Oct. 22, 2015
BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip — Clashes have suddenly erupted along the southern, eastern and northern borders of the Gaza Strip. This has raised concerns that Gaza will never experience stability.
____Palestinian youths have insisted on reaching the iron fence separating the Gaza Strip from the Green Line from the eastern Bureij refugee camp. On Oct. 10, and the days that followed, they managed to cross the fence and hang the Palestinian flag.
____For the first time in years, demonstrators managed to cross the border; after Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, it imposed a buffer zone of between 600 and 1,000 meters (1,968 to 3,280 feet) at the border.
More . . .
❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL  CLOSES  MAJOR  CHECKPOINT  BETWEEN  BETHLEHEM  AND  JERUSALEM
Oct. 22, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A major military checkpoint separating Bethlehem and Jerusalem was shut down Thursday morning in preparation for Jewish pilgrims to enter a religious site in the area.
____The Israeli Civil Administration said in a statement that Checkpoint 300 would remain closed for three days, returning to normal operation on Monday morning.
____The statement referred to the closure as a “security procedure” taken before thousands of “Jewish people are expected to flock to the nearby Rachel’s Tomb” to commemorate the anniversary of the biblical figure’s death.
____The site is surrounded on three sides by the Israeli separation wall despite being in the middle of the Palestinian city of Bethlehem. . . .
More . . .
❸ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  10  PALESTINIANS  IN  WEST  BANK  RAIDS
Oct. 23, 2015
HEBRON (Ma’an) — Israeli forces detained 10 Palestinians in overnight arrest raids in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s army and locals said Friday. . . . In the district of Hebron. . . . from the village of al-Samu. . . . in the Ramallah district.
More . . .
❹ PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
ISRAELI  POLICE  KILLS  YOUTH  NEAR  JERUSALEM  FOR  ALLEGED  STABBING
JERUSALEM, October 22, 2015 (WAFA) – Israeli security forces Thursday shot dead a youth and seriously injured another one for allegedly stabbing an Israeli settler in the settlement town of Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem, according to police sources.
____Israeli police said the two men attempted to mount the rooftop of an Israeli bus in Beit Shemesh, but they were unable to do so, before they allegedly stabbed an Israeli youth outside the bus . . . .
____The youth who was killed was identified as Meqdad al-Haj, 20, from the town of Surif near Hebron. The other youth . . . was transferred to Hadasah Medical Center in Jerusalem or medical treatment.
More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
+972 MAGAZINE
THE  REAL  PROBLEM  WITH  NETANYAHU’S  MUFTI  SPEECH
Noam Sheizaf
By calling the Palestinians Nazis, the Israeli prime minister was saying they can never be negotiated with — that Israel must fight them to the bloody end.
Oct. 23, 2015
Despite the festival of mockery taking place on social media, Benjamin Netanyahu clearly does not believe that Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini is more responsible than Hitler for the Holocaust . . . . Netanyahu is a smart guy who knows World War II history better than most of his critics. The idea that the mufti is responsible for the extermination of European Jewry is completely absurd, and Netanyahu knows that . . . . he wasn’t even talking about the Nazis, and he certainly never meant to absolve them for the Holocaust. The prime minister was trying to make a statement about the Palestinians and that’s the real problem.
____Saying that the Palestinians are Nazis — very much like the comparison between Israel and the Nazis — has no place in a fact-based or historically accurate discourse . . . . The only reason to do so would be to illustrate that it is impossible to negotiate, or even speak with, the other side — that they must be fought to the bloody end. That is the historical context and significance of comparing somebody to the Nazis
More . . .
Related . . .

“ABSENCE,”  BY  IBRAHIM  NASRALLAH

Who loves the winter as you do?
And is fascinated by trees that resist the wind as you do?
And who like you perfects life
With such innocent joy?
God!
If only you were with me now
I have prepared everything
The chestnuts and the fire,
I have pulled back the blinds
And raised my prayer to the gypsy rain
Pleaded that it persist in its discord
And eternal rites
God!
If only you were beside me now!
I have prepared my poems
And reclaimed my hand
From the combat of the street
From the merchants
And the brokers
And the guardsmen,
And a frost that has tried so often
To squeeze you out of my heart
From bullets that have repeatedly aimed
To swallow up the ring of your voice
As you commune with the buds
Or kindle the fire
God! Had you been with me
We would have sung our song now
The one which the wind almost uproots from my voice
Each time I sing it alone
――Translation by Ibrahim Muhawi

From Poem Hunter. Poemhunter.com. 1 Nov. 2014 Web. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/absence-107/
About Ibrahim Nasrallah 

A Palestinian protester holds a Palestinian flag during clashes with Israeli troops near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, Oct. 15, 2015. (photo by REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)
A Palestinian protester holds a Palestinian flag during clashes with Israeli troops near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, Oct. 15, 2015. (photo by REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)

“. . . There’s enough room for both of us in the field . . .” (Samih Al-Qasim)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Ziziphus spina-christi, the Christ's Thorn Jujube, an evergreen tree. It grows in Palestine in valleys up to an elevation of 500m. By some traditions, it was the tree from which Jesus' Crown of Thorns was made. See poem below. (Photo: From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.)
Ziziphus spina-christi, the Christ’s Thorn Jujube, an evergreen tree. It grows in Palestine in valleys up to an elevation of 500m. By some traditions, it was the tree from which Jesus’ Crown of Thorns was made. See poem below. (Photo: From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.)

❶ 1 Palestinian killed, 1 injured after alleged attack in Beit Shemesh
❷ East Jerusalem is becoming a giant prison
❸ Israeli mistaken for Palestinian ‘attacker’ shot dead in Jerusalem
❹ Despite global disgust, Netanyahu doubles down on claim that Hitler got idea of Final Solution from a Palestinian
❺ Opinion/Analysis: Chaos in Jerusalem is a Warning of Things to Come
❻ Poetry by Samih Al-Qasim
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
1  PALESTINIAN  KILLED,  1  INJURED  AFTER  ALLEGED  ATTACK  IN  BEIT  SHEMESH
Oct. 22, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — One Palestinian was killed and one critically injured by Israeli police in Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem, on Thursday after an alleged stabbing attack, Israeli media and police said.
____An Israeli police spokesperson told Ma’an that two Palestinians attempted to board a children’s bus in the city but were blocked from entering, before stabbing an Israeli man in his twenties. Israeli police arrived on scene and shot the suspected attackers.
____The two men, along with the Israeli, were transferred to Hadassah hospital in Ein Karem.
____Israeli media reported that one of the suspected attackers was dead upon arrival to the hospital, the other left in critical condition. The Israeli man sustained moderate injuries in his upper body.
More . . .

Israeli police and stop and check Palestinians going out of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, October 15, 2015, Jerusalem, Israel. (Photo: Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org)
Israeli police and stop and check Palestinians going out of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, October 15, 2015, Jerusalem, Israel. (Photo: Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org)

❷ +972 MAGAZINE
EAST  JERUSALEM  IS  BECOMING  A  GIANT  PRISON
Yudith Oppenheimer
Oct. 21, 201
Let’s talk about life for a moment, about how we can live in this city. Let us set aside for now the differences of opinion on sovereignty and eternity and talk about this moment, in which we can still steer matters to their semi-sane course, and can still safeguard with the fragile, imperfect, problematic reality that we had here until a few days ago. It is difficult to believe, but we may yet miss this reality as a yearned-for island of near-normalcy that we have lost for some time.
____Let us make no mistake. Even if in a week, two weeks, a month, a year, the concrete barriers are removed that are now blocking the entrances and exits of the Palestinian neighborhoods . . . we will no longer be able to erase the stinging memory of the concrete barriers that we set up between us and them. The ones that have turned their home in the heart of the city into a series of shunned and isolated ghettos.
____These walls have already built unseen fences of hatred and will continue to exist in our midst as a malignant poison.
More . . .
Related . . . JERUSALEM  BECOMING  MINI-POLICE  STATE  AND  GHOST  CAPITAL
❸ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI  MISTAKEN  FOR  PALESTINIAN  ‘ATTACKER’  SHOT  DEAD  IN  JERUSALEM
Oct. 22, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Israeli forces shot and killed a Jewish man in central Jerusalem overnight Wednesday after mistaking him for a “Palestinian attacker,” Israeli police and media said.
____Israeli media said the man was shot after he attempted to grab a weapon from Israeli security forces after an argument. The man was identified as a Jewish-Israeli from his identity card.
____Other reports said a private security guard shot the man after an altercation as he was getting off a bus in the center of Jerusalem.
More . . .
❹ MONDOWEISS
DESPITE  GLOBAL  DISGUST,  NETANYAHU  DOUBLES  DOWN  ON  CLAIM  THAT  HITLER  GOT  IDEA  OF  FINAL  SOLUTION  FROM  A  PALESTINIAN
News sites around the world today are talking about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion in a speech yesterday that Hitler didn’t want to kill the Jews, just expel them, till he was convinced to exterminate them by the Palestinian leader, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The criticism is so universal, and angry, that the remarks look to be a landmark in Netanyahu’s cynicism. . .
____Yet, in the face of the criticism Netanyahu is doubling down on his contention that Palestinians incited the holocaust. Here is what he said today before leaving to Berlin [. . . . .].
____Meanwhile, Germany says it has no idea what Netanyahu is talking about.
More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
PALESTINE CHRONICLE
CHAOS  IN  JERUSALEM  IS  A  WARNING  OF  THINGS  TO  COME
Oct. 21, 2015
Among Palestinians and Israelis, the recent upsurge in violence has been variously described as the children’s, lone-wolf, Jerusalem and smartphone intifadas. Each describes a distinguishing feature of this round of clashes.
____The steady erosion of Fatah and Hamas’ authority during the post-Oslo years, as the Palestinian factions proved incapable of protecting their people from the structural violence of the occupation, has driven Palestine’s politically orphaned children to the streets, armed with stones.
____The growing hopelessness and sense of abandonment have led a few so-called “lone wolves” to vent their fury on Israelis with improvised weapons such as knives, screwdrivers and cars. These attacks have attracted the most publicity, becoming the equivalent of the second intifada’s suicide bomber. But they serve chiefly as a barometer of Palestinian despair.
More . . . 

“CONVERSATION  BETWEEN  AN  EAR  OF  CORN  AND  A  JERUSALEM  ROSE  THORN,”  BY  SAMIH  AL-QASIM
(Scene: a Field on the Eastern Shore of the Mediterranean)

EAR OF CORN: Don’t kill me before my time is up.
JERUSALEM ROSE THORN: To kill for nothing is my only profession

EC: But your lovely flower
Is honey . . .
JRT: My unchecked desire
Is a road . . . its end is your death

EC: Live and die as you wish
With your sad flowers
And the gloom of your cursed desire
Live and die . . . but spare me
JRT: It’s our fate . . . I die so you may live
Or you die so I may live

EC: There’s enough room for both of us in the field
JRT: It’s our fate neighbor
It’s our fate
(Enter Fire and Fear jumps up)

EC & JRT: Don’t kill us fire
We are young and pretty and we grew up together
Don’t kill us
Don’t ki . . .
(Ashes, EC & JRT on the horizon)

From by Adonis, Mahmud Darwish, Samih al-Qasim. VICTIMS  OF  A  MAP:  A  BILINGUAL  ANTHOLOGY  OF  ARABIC  POETRY.  London: Saqi Books, 2008.
Available from Amazon.
About Samih Al-Qasim

Israeli police and stop and check Palestinians going out of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya on October 15, 2015, Jerusalem, Israel. (Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org)
Israeli police and stop and check Palestinians going out of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya on October 15, 2015, Jerusalem, Israel. (Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org)

“. . . a fierce struggle of liberation in the name of free men everywhere . . .” (Mahmoud Darwish, 1970)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Palestinian land in the Jordan Valley. (Agence France‑Presse/Photo)
Palestinian land in the Jordan Valley. (Agence France‑Presse/Photo)

❶ Palestinian shot dead in Hebron after alleged stabbing attempt
❷ Israeli forces deliver demolition orders in Jordan Valley
❸ Palestinian Shot Dead By Israeli Army Fire In Hebron
❹ Opinion/Analysis: Jerusalem in Context
❺ Opinion/Analysis: Recasting the rules: An intellectual intifada in the offing
❻ Poetry by Mahmoud Darwish
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PALESTINIAN  SHOT  DEAD  IN  HEBRON  AFTER  ALLEGED  STABBING  ATTEMPT
Oct. 20, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli forces during clashes in Beit Awwa west of Hebron, Palestinian sources said.
The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health identified the Palestinian as 24-year-old Udaay Hashim al-Masalma, and said that doctors in Hebron’s public hospital confirmed a bullet to the head was the cause of death.
____An Israeli army spokesperson alleged that Masalma was shot after he attempted to stab an Israeli soldier during a “violent riot” in Beit Awwa.
____She said the soldier “responded with live fire,” and that the Palestinian was evacuated for medical treatment by the Palestinian Red Crescent.
____She added that the Israeli soldier was lightly injured, and as far as she was aware, had not been evacuated for medical treatment.
More . . .
❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI  FORCES  DELIVER  DEMOLITION  ORDERS  IN  JORDAN  VALLEY
Oct. 20, 2015
TUBAS (Ma’an) — Israeli forces on Tuesday delivered demolition orders to two Palestinian families in the northern Jordan Valley, notifying them that their tin shacks and tents would be destroyed in less than a month.
____Local sources said the structures belonged to the families of Lutfi Muhammad Bani Audah and Muhammad Ali Bisharat and would be destroyed on Nov. 8.
____The families said that the structures slated for demolition were built several years ago and that they have official deeds to prove their ownership of the land.
More . . .
❸ IMEMC-INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
HEALTH  MINISTRY:  “46  PALESTINIANS,  INCLUDING  10  CHILDREN,  KILLED  SINCE  OCTOBER 1”
The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported, Monday, that the number of Palestinians, killed by Israeli fire since the beginning of this month, has arrived to 45, including 10 children, in addition to a political prisoner who died of medical neglect.
____The Ministry said the youngest slain Palestinian was 16 months of age, and that eight of the children were killed in the West Bank, and two in the Gaza Strip.
____It stated that 31 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, and 14 in the Gaza Strip, including a mother and her infant, in addition to a young man in the Houra area, in the Negev.
____As for wounded Palestinians, the Ministry said 1850 were shot with live rounds and rubber-coated steel bullets; some suffered burns and others were beaten and assaulted by soldiers and settlers, while more than 3500 suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation.
More . . .
❹ +972 MAGAZINE
JERUSALEM,  IN  CONTEXT
Noam Sheizaf
Oct. 19, 2015
Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a powerful piece in The Atlantic last week claiming to scrutinize Palestinian violence . . . . Goldberg starts by discussing Palestinian “paranoia” over Israel’s actions in Jerusalem and ends with a broader, more common claim: that the Palestinian refusal to recognize Jewish ties to the land of Israel is the primary source of the conflict’s intractability, replete with its frequent rounds of violence.
____There are many holes in this theory, and I’d like to point some of them out.  [. . . . .].
____. . . The belief that Palestinians are invaders or mere guests in this land and that their own ties to the Temple Mount are a political hoax is widely held in Israel’s right wing.
More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
MIDDLE EAST MONITOR (MEMO)
RECASTING  THE  RULES:  AN  INTELLECTUAL  INTIFADA  IN  THE  OFFING
Ramzy Baroud
Oct. 19, 2015
My first stop, after living for 22 years in a refugee camp in Gaza, was the city of Seattle. . . . There, for the first time, I stood before an audience outside Palestine, to speak about Palestine [. . . . .].
____Here, I learned, too, of the limits imposed on the Palestinian right to speak, of what I could or should not say. Platforms for an impartial Palestinian discourse were extremely narrow to begin with, and when any was available, Palestinians hardly took center stage [. . . . .].
____However, after spending almost two decades living in the US, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and travelling across the globe to speak about human rights – starting with Palestinian rights, history and struggle – I began to grasp the seriousness of an unmistakable trend: where the Palestinian narrative is marginalized and fundamentally misunderstood [. . . . .].
____So it was not uncommon to see an entire two-day conference on Palestine divided into several sessions and many workshops without a single Palestinian on the podium . . . . the frame of mind that neglected or avoided the Palestinian narrative has not been defeated completely.
Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist, author and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story.
More . . . 

“I  DECLARE,”  BY  MAHMOUD  DARWISH  (1970)
As long as a hand-span of my land remains
As long as I have an olive tree―
A lemon tree―
A well―and a cactus plant
As long as I have but a single memory
A tiny library
A grandfather’s picture―and a wall
As long as Arabic words are uttered
And folk songs are sung
In my land
Scribes of poetry
Tales of Antar Al-Abse
Epics of the war against Persia and Rome
As long as I possess my eyes
Lips and hands
My own-self!
I shall declare in the face of my foe!―
A fierce struggle of liberation
In the name of free men everywhere
Workers―students―and poets―
I shall declare―
And let the cowards―ENEMIES OF THE SUN
Be satiated of the bread of shame
As long as I have myself
As long as myself remain
My words will remain―
Bread and arms―
In the hands of freedom fighters!

From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY  OF  THE  SUN:  POETRY  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN  RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970.
Available from Amazon.
About Mahmoud Darwish

Right-wing ‘Temple activist’ Yehuda Glick holding a book depicting the Jewish Temple while standing in front of the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, May 21, 2009. Glick survived an assassination attempt by a Palestinian man in 2014. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Right-wing ‘Temple activist’ Yehuda Glick holding a book depicting the Jewish Temple while standing in front of the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, May 21, 2009. Glick survived an assassination attempt by a Palestinian man in 2014. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

“. . . We have reached the peak of our tragedy. . . “ (Tawfiq Zayyad)

Harold Knight1 Comment
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor press conference in Geneva. October 16,2015 (Euro-Med photo) See ❹ below.
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor press conference in Geneva. October 16,2015 (Euro-Med photo) See ❹ below.

❶ Settlers forcibly evict Palestinian families from Silwan homes
❷ Elderly Palestinian woman dies after delay at Jerusalem checkpoint
❸ Army Kidnaps Twelve Palestinians, Including 4 Children, In Jerusalem
❹ ‘Caught on Camera:’ eight extrajudicial killings of Palestinians
❺ Opinion/Analysis: PALESTINIANS NEED HOPE, NOT CALM
❻ Poetry by Tawfiq Zayyad
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(Please read “Purpose” above. Thank you for “following.”)
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❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
SETTLERS  FORCIBLY  EVICT  PALESTINIAN  FAMILIES  FROM  SILWAN  HOMES
Oct. 19, 2015
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — At least nine Palestinians were left homeless on Monday after settlers escorted by Israeli security personnel forcibly evicted them from their homes in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
____The Silwan-based Wadi Hilweh Information Center said a large group of Israeli border police and officers escorted staff from the far-right Israeli Ateret Cohanim organization to the Batn al-Hawa area of the neighborhood.
____Israeli forces then surrounded two Palestinian houses belonging to the Abu Nab family before ransacking the property and evicting the families.
More . . . 
Related . . .
❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ELDERLY  PALESTINIAN  WOMAN  DIES  AFTER  DELAY  AT  JERUSALEM  CHECKPOINT
Oct. 19, 2015
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — An elderly Palestinian woman died late Sunday after being delayed from reaching a hospital by an Israeli checkpoint recently set-up in the al-Issawiya neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
____Huda Muhammad Darwish, 65, and her family were delayed from reaching the hospital after she suffered breathing difficulties following clashes in which tear gas was fired in the neighborhood, a local committee said.
____Her family tried to rush her to hospital, but Israeli troops ignored that there was a sick person in the car and delayed them at the checkpoint.
____Huda was pronounced dead at the hospital, although the cause of death is unclear.
More . . .
❸ IMEMC-INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
ARMY  KIDNAPS  TWELVE  PALESTINIANS,  INCLUDING  4  CHILDREN,  IN  JERUSALEM
Oct. 19, 2015
The Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Silwan (Silwanic), in occupied Jerusalem, has reported that dozens of soldiers invaded, on Sunday evening and Monday at dawn, various towns and neighborhoods in the city, and kidnapped twelve Palestinians, including four children between the ages of 11 and 14.
More . . .
❹ MONDOWEISS
‘CAUGHT  ON  CAMERA:’  EIGHT  EXTRAJUDICIAL  KILLINGS  OF  PALESTINIANS
Annie Robbins
Oct. 18, 2015
A new report summarizing Israel’s Arbitrary Killings and its System of Structural Violence was released by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor at a press conference in Geneva on Friday. The release included the following video, “Caught on Camera: Israel’s extrajudicial killings,” illustrating the killings of Palestinian civilians involved in political protests during the last two weeks.
____The report follows Euro-Med Monitor‘s October 10th Call on International Community to halt Israel’s extrajudicial executions.
More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
PALESTINE CHRONICLE
PALESTINIANS  NEED  HOPE,  NOT  CALM
John V. Whitbeck
Oct. 18, 2015
Since the current upsurge of violence in Israel and occupied Palestine began, numerous foreign leaders, as well as the UN Security Council, have cited the urgent need to restore “calm”. It is not calm, a euphemism for Palestinian submission that is urgently needed but, rather, genuine and credible hope for freedom and some measure of justice.
____The Israeli government will not provide hope, and the Palestinian Authority cannot provide it.
More . . .

“ON  THE  TRUNK  OF  AN  OLIVE  TREE,”  BY  TAWFIQ  ZAYYAD
Because I do not weave wool,
And daily am in danger of detention,
And my house is the object of police visits
To search and “to cleanse,”
Because I cannot buy paper,
I shall carve the record of my sufferings,
And all my secrets
On an olive tree
In the courtyard
Of my house.

I shall carve my story and the chapters of my tragedy,
I shall carve my sighs
On my grove and on the tombs of my dead;
I shall carve
All the bitterness I have tasted,
To be blotted out by some of the happiness to come

I shall carve the number of each deed
Of our usurped land
The location of my village and its boundaries.
The demolished houses of its peoples,
My uprooted trees,
And each crushed wild blossom.
And the names of those master torturers
Who rattled my nerves and caused my misery.
The names of all the prisons,
And every type of handcuff
That closed around my wrists,
The files of my jailers,
Every curse
Poured upon my head.
I shall carve:
Kafr Qasim, I shall not forget!
And I shall carve:
Deir Yassin, it’s rooted in my memory.
I shall carve:
We have reached the peak of our tragedy.
It has absorbed us and we have absorbed it,
But we have finally reached it.

I shall carve all that the sun tells me,
And what the moon whispers,
And what the skylark relates,
Near the well
Forsaken by lovers.

And to remember it all,
I shall continue to carve
All the chapters of my tragedy,
And all the stages of the disaster,
From beginning
To end,
On the olive tree
In the courtyard
Of the house.

From  THE  PALESTINIAN  WEDDING:  A  BILINGUAL  ANTHOLOGY  OF  CONTEMPORARY  PALESTINIAN  RESISTANCE  POETRY.  Ed. and Trans. A. M. Elmessiri. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011. Reprint from Three Continents Press, Inc., 1982. Available from Palestine Online Store.
About Tafiq Zayyad. 

The settlement organization, Ateerat Cohanim, seized two houses in the area of Batn Al-Hawa in Silwan south of Al-Aqsa Mosque on Monday morning. (Photo: Silwan, Jerusalem SILWANIC)
The settlement organization, Ateerat Cohanim, seized two houses in the area of Batn Al-Hawa in Silwan south of Al-Aqsa Mosque on Monday morning. (Photo: Silwan, Jerusalem SILWANIC)